Reverence
by ExperimentalSubject
Summary: The life and times of an utterly devoted troll.
1. beginning

_You are not wood, you are not stones, but men._

They've let you off of the ship for the time being, having safely docked at port and decided it was safe enough to allow their loyal pilot to wander, and you walked to a broken-down side of town without realizing it, a lowblood quarter allowed to fall to seed. The first thing you notice is the acrid scent of smoke, carried by the breeze.

You duck into a dark side alley when the sound of screaming and shouts carries to you with the smoke. You shouldn't be here.

You _really_ shouldn't be here. This sentiment is doubled when two trolls round the corner, tumble into the alley that you've claimed as a hiding spot, and dash behind a large trash can in a panic. You bristle- you do not like intruders, which maybe comes from your time spent as a ship enforcing security- and your eyes begin to crackle and glow slightly. There's a muffled curse from behind the trash can, and a head pops up- a male troll in the midst of panic. He curses again once he sees you, but stands up and, in a motion much faster than you expected, sidesteps from behind the dumpster, grabs you, and drags you back behind the meager shelter. His hand is over your mouth-he reeks of sweat and smoke- and before you can bite him or blast him off of you there's a hoarse voice in your ear telling you "If you cause a scene, you'll get culled." Your reply of "By who and what army?" is muffled to barely a whisper.

Which is pretty lucky for you, considering this is the time that a few trolls race past the alley's opening, followed shortly by a pack of what are probably subjuggulators. Thankfully none of them peer too closely into the side street. There is no way any of you would have escaped that one.

Once they pass, the mysterytroll removes his hand from your mouth, correctly assuming you've been scared into not causing a problem. "That army." You nod. That army. You extract yourself from the pile- you'd all unconsciously pressed together and become a bit tangled trying to keep everyone as out of sight as possible- and stand. There's the occasional pitter of running feet, and the smoke is getting more and more visible, but you judge it safe to stand at the moment. "I need to get back to the ship, this is..." You're mumbling to yourself, and you never get around to saying what this actually is, because curiosity takes the better of you and you let out a blob of psionic energy to get a better look at the group. The two intruders are bathed in blue light coming from your hand. "A psionic," the smaller troll crouched in the corner breathes out.

"I am_ the_ Psiionic." (Mercifully your tongue only trips up a little) "And who might _you_ two be?" The male troll stands, then helps his companion up. You take them in. The first one's small, shorter than you, but not anywhere near as skinny as you are, although that could just be the numerous folds of fabric he's got on as a cloak. The one next to him is a slightly taller and rather shaky female with a wild mane of hair. "I'm called the Signless. She refers to herself as the Disciple." He accompanied the introductions with a wave of the hand. "And we'd both be very much obliged if you would refrain from injuring, reporting, or otherwise inconveniencing us." You nod, not really aware of what you're agreeing to but instead trying to remember where you heard the title Signless before. That's right. This guy's the one that- oh, _2hit_.

You grab the Signless and Disciple by the back of their necks, forcing them back down, just as there's a shriek that is abruptly cut off with a _sniickt_ sound and the _tump_ of a body falling to the ground. No one breathes for a good minute. Hearing the voices of the soon-to-die is a skill you've unfortunately been given, and for once it actually proved useful, for you doubt you'd all have escaped this executioner without the victim's voice yelling in your ear to move. You now judge it safe, and let them back up. The Disciple turns to you, eyes huge and pupils enormously dilated. "Thanks."

"Y-" You're cut off by the Signless grabbing your arm and yanking- he's fairly strong, you realize, as both you and the Disciple are pulled back towards a low fence. Disciple leaps over easily, and the Signless looks at you, offering a hand. You don't take it, instead getting yourself over with a psionically-boosted jump. You never said you couldn't help yourself. Signless rejoins the group in an instant, taking the lead once more as he runs along a dizzying path of interlocking roads until you are all well out of the city's range.

When you stop, you realize how utterly spent you are, and rest your hands on your knees trying to get your breath back. "What was that all about?" you pant out, neglecting to ask the glaringly obvious question of 'why the fuck did I follow you'.

"I was making a speech," -you're somewhat vindicated to notice that the Signless is also out of breath-, "and things got a bit out of hand."

"No shit."

"It's not his fault!" The Disciple's voice is higher than you expected. "His speeches are always purrfect!" She pouts. "It's just that some clawful people decided to get angry! And then the people he was talking to decided that they should go burn highblood stuff and then it got out of paw..."

You can't help it.

You start laughing.

The Disciple gasps and starts berating you for laughing at their misfortunes, but is stopped with a wave of her leader's hand. "You are that idiotic troll after equality for blood castes." You lisp and breathless laughter mangle the last word almost beyond recognition, but it gets by. The Signless just grins at you.

"Yup. I'm the idiot out for peace."

You almost smile back when he asks "How about you join us?" and your face falls.

"What?"

"You heard me. In selfish terms, you've already been helpful tonight; it'd be nice if that were a regular thing, and in non-selfish terms, wouldn't you want to be free? Become an equal, a troll just like any other instead of being forced to be a ship?"

You pause, legitimately confused. You have never actually thought about that before. You thought you'd just get this done with, go back to the ship, and wait for it to set sail like planned in a few days. "What on Alternia do you mean? I can't just abandon my ship."

"But the thing is, you can. You can and you've just never thought about it before. Come with me. We can talk, and then you can decide. Just.. let me talk first, okay?" He smiles again and holds out his hand.

You want to refuse. You honestly want to refuse and go back but something keeps you there. Something about this troll who is risking his life for others, something about the fervent excitement and passion that are already visible in his voice, his eyes, his movement, keeps you here.

So you submit.

You follow the Signless.

He leads you to a makeshift camp in a woods a few meters away from where you were standing. Waiting there is a tall woman, dressed in jade and black (a jade blood? Here? Amazing. You remember the Disciple is a green blood as well. The height of these people on the spectrum adds to your surprise that they follow the advocator of hemoequality). She appears to have been expecting the Signless and Disciple, but your appearance does not give her any outward expression of surprise. She simply nods in your direction, informs you she is called Dolorosa, and hands all three of you a small bowl of stew from the pot she had been standing over. You thank her, make cursory introductions, and are pulled over to sit in the corner by the Signless.

His story is long. He tells you of everything he can possibly think of. The food given to you grows cold as he explains his visions, his hope for the future, his honest belief that you can help bring about this new Alternia.

It is not the speech that convinces you, although it does help.

What convinces you the most is the borderline manic passion the Signless puts into every word and thought.

For once, you are almost convinced you are something besides a living steering wheel. You give in. You tell him you will stay, and he hugs you, bending back and suddenly lifting you up off the ground.

That both startles and flusters you, and you stand spluttering until the Dolorosa rescues you by stopping by and informing you she is "quite happy to have another troll added to our meager band", then leading you away. She's kind, and certainly loves the Signless, although in an odd way of love you've never seen before. Everyone is close, but you are welcomed.

And you follow the Signless.

AN

urgh if there's any more stupid grammar things I missed like in the last one I'm gonna punch myself.

finally got off my ass and wrote some signless/psiioniic interaction thank u experi. I should be continuing my steelfedora but I lost the drafts.


	2. middle

I continued. And edited some minor shit apologies if you've been getting notes in the mail but it was really bugging me ehe.

* * *

_And being men, hearing the word of Caesar, it will inflame you, it will make you mad._

When he's hurt, they give him to you. It may not be the most obvious answer, because Dolorosa is the master of maternal caregiving and Disciple has fixed up countless wounds of her own, but you want to be responsible for something. You want Signless to be invulnerable, never hurt, never dead, and always standing in front of a crowd that's hanging off his every word. You know it's not possible, so you do your best to keep his weaknesses and injuries as something known only to you as much as possible. The others allow you, because isn't it the job of moirails (or whatever you are) to look after one another?

This time, his nose is broken. It's off to one side, and has been for at least half an hour, considering you've only just now been given the time and peace to fix it. Setting it back is going to hurt like a bitch. You issue Signless a warning, and he grimaces as you place your hands on either side of his nose and, with a crack, force it back to as close as you can get to its original location and angle. He lets out a shout, followed by a stream of exceptionally imaginative phrases on the subject of you, pain, and anything else he can think of as he bends forward, blinking away tears. "Sorry."

"For God's sake, Psii, could you have made that any more painful? I think there's some trolls a couple miles underwater who couldn't quite hear me yelling well enough."

You shake your head and bite back a smile, pulling his head back up to face you. "At least now your nose isn't sideways."

He just grumbles at you, glaring halfheartedly through one eye, the other being swollen shut and purpling. You pull his head towards you, and the rest of him follows, scooting closer until he runs into your legs. There's another scrape running along the side of his face, from the bottom of his ear to the underside of his chin, oozing an unnatural red. You procure some gauze and medical tape from the small pile of supplies next to you and set about patching this new injury up, along with removing any other signs of his blood. He sits in silence while you do. Signless does this a lot, you've learned; just lapses into another world and gets lost there for a bit. You finish patching up his face, and set about checking the rest of him over. He allows you, letting you move him like a rag doll as you frown and mutter to yourself sporadically.

"Psii?" He snaps out of his reprieve, and is looking at you inspectively.

"Hm?"

"Do you think we'll ever improve anything?"

This isn't a usual line of questioning, and you sigh, readjusting so you're sitting folded around him, his back against your chest and your gangly limbs going everywhere.

"I think," and you pause. You aren't sure where to go from there, so you just wing it. "Actually, I think. And that's a new one. Trolls like me, lowbloods, ones raised as slaves, aren't supposed to think. But you're making them. Because of today and the days before, there's a whole bunch of trolls sitting at home, thinking. You don't need to ask if you've improved anything because you already have. You're making them wonder if this is the Alternia they want."

This is possibly the most he's ever heard you speak in one go, and he sits back, absorbing your words. "It'd still be nice if nobody decided it would be great to try and injure me about it, though."

You smile and bury your nose in his hair. "That's why we're here, SS. To beat people off when they get pissy."

You think he smiles back, and he relaxes into your grip. "And they always do get 'pithy', don't they?" Despite the annoyed words, his tone is warm and relaxed. He trusts what you say. And he should, because he _is_ changing things, no matter what anyone says to the contrary, and you will always be there to protect him. No one can ever change that.

No matter what the voices say, no matter what the Empire threatens.

No one can change that.

* * *

I have too many Psiioniic feels. Someone help me.


	3. the end

ok this is way longer than planned and kinda disjointed I'm sorry

* * *

'_Tis good you know not that you are his heirs, for if you should, O, what would come of it?_

You were not allowed to watch him burn. They were afraid of what you might do. So you did not watch him die.

Which, you suppose, was both good and bad. On one hand, you were not forced to watch your best friend die. On the other, you could not even be there to stand in respect.

You were, instead, taken to the Battleship Condescension, moored just outside where they hung him.

Signless to Condescension. Make the switch. Psiioniic to Helmsman. One to two. Bifurcation, just like always.

And you were alone when you were installed.

So very alone.

But you heard the crowd and you heard his screams.

God, you heard his screams.

They were the only thing you could hear over your own.

The installation process hurts like hell. You had almost forgotten. Biowire, pushing and stabbing itself into your skin, wiggling around in the subcutaneous layer until the tendrils found a nerve to connect to, drawing out and stabbing in again if they couldn't find anything suitable. It was what you had nightmares about, but you forgot how excruciatingly painful it was in life. Lying as an undercurrent to your trials were the screaming of the Signless and the occasional roar of the crowd that had gathered- you didn't know what they did to him, you only found out later at the Condesce's gloating, and it was exactly as horrible as you expected.

In a way, it was nice to not be the only one screaming so much you went hoarse. Hearing him was a reminder what, and who, you were doing this for. That you (selfish thought, yes, and you felt bad for thinking it) weren't alone. Your world narrowed down to the two of you.

Two again. It

always

comes

back

to two.

Eventually, two days became weeks became months became sweeps became centuries.

And you were so fucking tired. It was exhausting, being a ship. She always demanded more of you, always had to go faster, faster, faster. The first time she extended your life, you were almost happy. Death is scary. The fear of the unknown is powerful, and you almost thanked her. The times after that, it became annoying, then tedious, then another thing you simply no longer paid attention to. You wish she'd just let you go, let you _sleep_, but no. She wanted to keep her precious Helmsman. After a while, you stopped remembering why. Why you were here. Why she kept you. Something about emotion. Something about a troll, a name starting with K or maybe S, you can't remember. You don't know. You don't care.

But you keep getting mental pings from a hidden file every couple of hours or years. Something hidden in a fold of wire no one has access to. You can't open it, you forgot the password, and of course the one who set it up (maybe it was the Psiioniic? Certainly not the Helmsman) just had to make it password-protected. It gives you flashes, though. It opens itself just a little. Green eyes. Red blood. Jade dress. The reason you had to live- if you could only open it and read what you left yourself.

After a point, just like with everything else, you give up. You stop caring.

You let the Condesce and the remnant of your previous self- what was he called again?- assault you at odd intervals. You hang there. You're a ship. You are so tired of being a ship. You are so tired of being a troll. You are so tired of being.

Finally, _finally,_ one day it stops.

One day- or maybe two?- you are brought abruptly back to your body (what's left of it). It's sudden, with a sudden noise and a sudden burst of pain. An involuntary contraction of your chest and you cough/vomit up blood. You note it with a sort of distant interest. There's noise. Lots. In your head, for one, where there's such a loud gurgling scream noise that hurts so badly, especially combined with the death screams of everyone else on the ship; and out of your head, where a female voice you know is demanding you go faster, and as you blink blood and tears out of your eyes, you obey blindly.

You go faster and faster and then you're done.

One second you are going and the other you are simply

not.

First you are a ship, then you are falling falling falling landing. Space, then you feel as if you're passing through some sort of membrane, and then there's a loud _splash_ and you're underwater.

'_Hm_,' you think, '_this is new_'. You take a bit to observe the new sensation- you don't appear to require breathing, so you simply sink slowly and let yourself be pushed a long with the current. You look over, and see arms. That's unusual. You didn't think you had any, that they had long since atrophied and/or dissolved away, leaving only a nerve network for the biowire. Apparently not. That or- ah, now your logic processes remind you they exist- that or you're dead. You suppose that makes sense. Still in a bit of a daze, you reach over and pull on a strand of biowire embedded in your lower arm. If you were above water, you think it would make a squelchy noise, which you would be interested to hear, but instead it just draws out, leaving a trail of yellow after it, and no pain, which is odd, but you suppose death has no need for pain, much like breathing. You continue pulling out odd bits of biowire still embedded in your limbs and lower torso as you drift along, making no concerted effort to get anywhere. You like the water. It's quiet. It's been so long since you heard quiet. Eventually, you got bored, though. You kicked up (a stange sensation, kicking) and hit surface, taking a breath out of instinct.

There's a beach in your line of sight, not too far off. '_That's where I should go._' And so you draw up, reach inside yourself for your psionics, lift yourself up into the air and float over. You land on the beach gently, not looking up until you hear "Well, it's _about goddamn time_." There's a troll standing in front of you. He is short and wearing an odd cloak and looking at you expectantly and suddenly you remember _green red jade the password was Vantas. _"Well?" He says, continuing to look at you as if you have yet to do something needed.

"Vantas." You say aloud, still stunned.

"No shit, _Captor_. Now if you don't get your skinny ass over here and greet me properly, I just might shove you back into the ocean and let you stay there. You have no idea how long I've waited to see you. Just couldn't die in a timely manner like the rest of us, could you?" He holds his arms out expectantly. You nod numbly, you aren't prepared for this, but you still walk over and fold yourself over him. He's warm and stocky and his arms are so tight around you that you think you might break.

He's a stranger that you missed so terribly much.

Vantas lets go, takes your hand. You're led off the beach, into a sort of plain, which logically shouldn't be in the same biome as the beach but the afterlife works upon its own schedule. Sitting there is a house and around it is _everyone_. You don't know how you remember them but you _do_ and it's amazing. Disciple jumps up and then you have your second hug in the past 1,200 sweeps; your previous-captain Dualscar just gives you the finger over her shoulder; Dolorosa just nods and smiles warmly in her own way, and everyone else you don't know but they act as if you're worthy of being welcomed.

It's beautiful. Everyone is back. _You're_ back. They make room for you in the group, and you take your place next to Signless.

Later, as more trolls are slowly added, you learn where you are. Bubbles.

Not quite Heaven, but damn close.

Later, when the Demon comes, you're okay with it. You've had your run, you know, and your time being dead was nice. You just grab Signless' hand (and try to stand a bit in front of him, out of the habit of protection) and then there's light and you're all gone.

An acceptable end to a disjointed story, you decide in your last seconds.

And then you're gone for good.

* * *

aaah oh my gosh I think this is the first multichapter fic I've ever actually finished ;w;

Thank you for reading and I hope you enjoyed it.


End file.
